


Of His Bones Are Coral Made

by dragonlandsandyaoihands



Series: Mad Blood Stirring [5]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alpha Lance (Voltron), Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Archaeologist Keith, Bottom Keith (Voltron), Gratuitous Archaeology, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Omega Keith (Voltron), Top Lance (Voltron), eldritch horror, god lance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-03
Updated: 2018-04-03
Packaged: 2019-04-17 22:49:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14199333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonlandsandyaoihands/pseuds/dragonlandsandyaoihands
Summary: Having finally had a chance to go on an archaeological excavation, Keith hoped to uncover secrets about an ancient god, mentioned only in rare whispers among the descendants of a vibrant civilization. He should have been more careful what he wished for.





	Of His Bones Are Coral Made

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd, as always, by my loving brother. Who claims it reads like a textbook. Thanks bro. Also, at the beginning when it says 6 inches, that's not a typo. Painstaking is another name for archaeology and it is s l o w.
> 
> If you're interested in reading more of my writing early access, voting for writing prompts, or drabbles that aren't posted on AO3 at all, come check me out at:  
> dragonlandsandyaoihands.tumblr.com for more information in my bio.
> 
> Title is from Ariel's Song in the Tempest by Billy Shakespeare
> 
> There are footnotes at the bottom of the story for when you see a number in parentheses. Bolded lines are in Ciboney.

Keith breathed heavily, bent at an uncomfortable angle at the waist. He wiggled forward, trying to get better leverage with one of his hands. His skin stretched and his shirt fell forward, exposing more of his torso. His sunburns ached and itched in the worst way. The dirt he was laying in didn’t help. Gently placing his hand on the floor of the trench, making sure not to disturb anything, he steadied himself and returned to gentle trowelling. He’d been at it for hours, long past his comrades on the dig. After lunch, they had gone back to the relatively new trench, but even six inches down, they hadn’t found anything of interest. When the sun began to sink in the sky, the others had called it a day and went back to the campsite to hose down and have dinner. Keith probably should have gone back with them; his heat was due to start the next day and clean clothes and food would have been beneficial. But, the dig was finishing up in a little over a week. With the days out of commission for his heat, Keith knew he’d miss most of the last bit of time and he wanted to work as hard as he could for as long as he could. He paused to wipe a bead of sweat from his forehead, likely smearing more dirt on his forehead.  
  
When he first got to Cuba, a few months prior, Keith had been prepared for the searing heat during the daytime, but no one told him that it barely cooled off at night. It had gotten dark enough that Keith was working by the light of a florescent lamp, sitting precariously close to the edge of the trench. And still the oppressive heat and humidity bore down on Keith as he gingerly moved the soft dirt out of the way. He was too in the zone to notice. He’d been damn lucky to get accepted onto the dig. It was mostly due, he privately thought, to his mentor, Shiro, from the university. Shiro likely put in a good word, or a few, to get him here and Keith would be forever grateful. He’d been interested in the Taino civilization for years. Well, Shiro might say that interest was an understatement, but he didn’t really understand Keith’s relationship with the knowledge of peoples long lost to history. It was more than the excitement of relearning some piece of forgotten lore from the whispers and deciphering cryptic scrolls. It was hard to explain.  
  
Keith had rarely felt a connection to living people in his daily life. With the exception of his mentor from university, Shiro, Keith hadn’t felt close to anyone since his father passed away early in Keith’s childhood. He hadn’t been lonely, exactly, but he’d been drawn to the idea of deities and gods glorified and worshipped with such fervor in ancient societies. He wasn’t picky; all pantheons held equal interest to him. The modern day worship of a monotheistic god did mildly distract Keith briefly, but he was dismayed at the combination of judgmental pulpits and casual cruelty to outsiders. So Keith turned the other cheek. In fact, he had an altar set up in his cramped apartment, mostly consisting of bird feathers, cool rocks, a cup of water, and a salt shaker. His apartment didn’t allow him to light fires, so he didn’t bother having a candle or incense of any kind. It wasn’t dedicated to any god in particular; Keith more enjoyed the sense of being connecting that came from kneeling in front of the altar and opening his mind to the universe. He collected and lovingly made copies of ancient texts to read during those meditations; anything seemed possible then. Even as his tongue tripped and his voice cracked. He could only guess at the sounds in old books.  
  
One text he’d enjoyed a lot described the fact that nearly every polytheistic society has had a patron god of omegas. Not for alphas or betas necessarily, but always for omegas. The author postulated that the reason was that omegas were anatomically and emotionally very different from the rest of the population, not to mention statistically less likely. The factors combined to a view of an alien or otherness ingrained in the idea of the omega. So, like the lightning, or fire, floods, hurricanes, omegas became a mystical force of nature, explained away with a powerful super-human entity. The text had mentioned the Taino civilization multiple times as an example of the phenomenon and Keith had jumped at the chance to become acquainted with the Taino up close and personally. This particular dig had uncovered an amazingly intact set of religious artefacts. It wasn’t a temple per se; Keith’s favorite kind of site, but it came very close. They’d found a fountain laden with religious iconography depicting the zemis(1) worshipped by the Taino, as well as an elaborate altar. Some other guanin, or golden pendants, typical of both the nobility and the bohiques who gained their healing powers from speaking with the gods, were also found, although not in very good condition.  
  
He’d been hopeful that they might find one of the chairs the nobility sat upon, but of course they were long decayed. Keith had been especially interested in one zemi unique to the area, a slight variation on the usual zemi configuration. It wasn’t unusual; Cuba was very large and contained 29 chiefdoms within the Taino civilization. Havana, in fact, was the Taino name for the area that the Spanish just adopted. Most studies cited Atabey as the main zemi of the moon, fresh water, fertility. However, the community in the area the excavation happened had a slightly different tale. One of a central zemi, Lacaracol, who took the place of Atabey and had one additional duty. He was the zemi of omegas and loved an offering of cassava bread(2). The fertility aspect was especially played up and he supposedly came to hurting, unmated omegas who were in the throes of heat. Some of the local stories also added that he was more likely to visit omegas who had been hurt or harassed by alphas in the past and wished to have nothing to do with them. Keith couldn’t help but notice that that variation only occurred when an omega was sharing the tale and no alphas were in earshot. The zemi apparently visited the omega and relieved them of their heat. Additionally, it was traditional for an omega who had been blessed to remain forever unmated in the service of the zemi, as Lacaracol was also very jealous. Of course, after the raids by the Carib peoples intensified over the decades and the Taino population decreased significantly, the Taino society could no longer afford to have omegas not be mated.  
  
Keith heard a metallic scraping sound and was rudely jerked out of his musings. Maneuvering carefully, Keith moved six inches away from the bit of bright color he could see in the dirt, glinting in the lamplight. It looked like gold. Refusing to allow himself to get too excited, Keith focused on trowelling a pedestal around the object, scraping away the dirt to make a six inch by 6 inch square around the finding. It wasn’t necessarily the best archaeological technique in a trench full of objects to be uncovered, but considering this was the only thing he had found here, Keith figured it was a safe bet. After spending time distinguishing the pedestal, he withdrew to get the camera and take photos. As he was going to put the camera down, his eye was drawn to the scale and north arrow that he’d forgotten in his eager haste. Sighing hugely at his sloppy work, he retook the pictures, ruthlessly suppressing his anticipation to maintain his professional demeanor.  
  
He took turns between revealing more of the gold and taking photographs, making notes in his journal of the time, weather conditions, and the excavation techniques employed. No way he wasn’t documenting every bit of provenance. As he worked, it became increasingly clear that the object was a guanin, similar to others found in other trenches, but in much better condition than any of them had been. Keith couldn’t help the thrill he felt. The discovery belonged solely to him for that moment and it was a rush. Just after he’d taken the final photographs, a wave of heat crashed over Keith and snuffed out his good mood. Groaning, he shuffled back from the edge of the trench, rolling over onto his back and panting at the sky. All of the blood had rushed to his head from lying face down in the trench for so long and his whole body ached from the uncomfortable position. Clenching his fists, he closed his eyes briefly. Without the stimulus and focus of active excavation, his body made its various pains known clearly. His sunburns itched something fierce and the crusted dirt lay on his skin like the world’s worst blanket.  
  
He heaved a sigh and cracked his neck. Keith refused to let the misery of his impending heat take away from his discovery. Sucking a breath in through his teeth, he sat up and opened his eyes, rolling back onto his stomach to continue where he’d left off, heat be damned. But when he leaned forward, he noticed a crucial problem. The necklace was gone. Keith glanced around the pit, panic bubbling at the base of his throat. No, calm down. It can’t have gone anywhere. They’d set up a primitive fence around the whole dig site to prevent animals from getting in and they had signs set up everywhere. During the daytime, when the sun hung high in the sky and Keith cursed it’s life-giving rays, sometimes the locals or, occasionally, a tourist, might stop by to gawk at the site and ask some questions. The archaeologists had a rotation schedule, different people standing up each time someone stood politely near the fence and called out to the diggers. Keith had been forced to stutter his way through a few explanations before the rest of the team took pity on him.  
  
Trying desperately to quell the rising nausea, Keith picked through the pedestal and dirt surrounding in the pit more carefully. He must have knocked it off accidentally when he sat up so quickly or something. There’s no way it could have just disappeared. No animals were stealthy enough to get by him, even with his eyes closed, who would be large enough to carry the pendant off, and no one else was around. His eyes suddenly alighted on a dim glow out of the corner of his vision. Startled, he jerked his head up, eyes bugging out of his head. He blinked slowly, trying to calm his racing heart rate. He wondered if it was possible to accidentally get high. Because there, standing on the edge of the pit and looking down at him inquisitively, was a guy. Not just any guy either. One who was gently glowing. As in emitting light from his body. His eyes in particular were blazing a bright blue, incongruent with his caramel skin and Latin American features.  
  
Keith gaped.  
  
Keith couldn’t help running his eyes over the man who had soundlessly materialized in front of him. In his own defense, the sight was _nice._ His chest was broad and seamless caramel skin stretched for miles. His collarbones cast sharp shadows on his neck, suggesting him as the lighting source and not some environmental light. Keith wanted to put his mouth on them immediately. His abs were defined and his biceps toned, but not overly muscled. Keith’s eyes continued further south without his permission and the guy had runner’s legs, long and lean. A quick glance confirmed that, yup, he was definitely not wearing any kind of clothing and Keith simultaneously blushed and felt a tingle of arousal at what he could see for that brief moment. The mystery man confirmed those impressive alpha stereotypes they were so fond of flaunting. On a second, less subtle glance, Keith’s brows furrowed slightly and his throat suddenly went dry. It looked sort of intimidating. But, even counting the male equipment, he was some kind of gently glowing divine being in human form and exactly Keith’s type.  
  
It was only when Keith had spent a few seconds just staring that he noticed two things: his staring had not gone unnoticed; mystery man’s smile had become more like a smug smirk. And the guy was wearing the guanin that had gone missing from his excavation,oddly shiny and glinting, like it had been gilded that very day and wasn’t thousands of years old. Choosing to ignore the sexual tension building in the pit of his stomach in favor of righteous indignation, Keith fumbled for a second before brandishing the nearest weapon at hand. He snarled fearsomely.  
  
“Give that back!”  
  
To the guy’s credit, his leer dropped off his face very fast. Keith felt mollified that the thief was apparently taking him seriously. Tilting his head to the side curiously, the thief cautiously approached with his palms showing in an almost universal sign of Please Do Not Attack Me. Stepping closer, Keith tensed and the thief paused. And snorted. Keith blinked. The thief giggled again and gestured helplessly at Keith’s hand. Reluctant to take his eyes off of the seemingly noiseless glowing guy in front of him, Keith flicked his gaze down briefly. Ah. He likely looked a little crazed, covered head to toe in dirt, sunburned all to hell, breathing heavily in a mixture of adrenalin and his oncoming heat, and aggressively threatening someone with a trowel. Keith didn’t flinch. He knew he kept his trowel sharp.  
  
“Look just hand it over okay? I don’t know where you came from or why you’re…like that. But you can’t just steal a priceless artefact okay?!”  
  
Keith held out his empty hand, palm up. When the thief didn’t move, Keith flexed his fingers impatiently. Did the guy not understand him? Shit. Keith was always too busy learning Sumerian or other dead languages to pick up something more useful. Like Spanish. Biting his lip, he pointed at his neck and then at the guanin on the guy’s chest and pointed at himself again. He couldn’t exactly pantomime giving a necklace back while still keeping a good grip on the trowel.  
  
As if sensing Keith’s dilemma, the thief stepped forward. In doing so, Keith was drawn to a slightly brighter glow; the thief’s eyes. They were an unnatural blue, no human had ever had eyes so blue. They shone with their own inner brightness. Keith’s grip around the trowel relaxed slightly and his abdomen throbbed more insistently. He licked his lips and his eyelashes fluttered. The glow of the man’s eyes intensified and he came even closer. It was ridiculous; Keith didn’t even get that disoriented while in the peak of his heats. He’d been with people before, been with an alpha once. He’d never experienced anything on this level. Like the guy was radiating lust.  
  
A clear voice speaking interrupted Keith’s puzzlement and he struggled to bring his upper brain back online. The man had stopped, close enough to be affecting Keith in the bizarre way, but far enough away to not raise Keith’s hackles. Still holding his hands out in a show of non-violence. Keith frowned.  
  
“Wait, what?”  
  
The guy repeated what he’d said. Keith’s gaze dropped to his lips, less to fantasize about those lips on him, and more to watch the shapes the thief’s mouth made. His own mouth twitched, mimicking the movements without his notice. The man repeated himself a second time, more slowly, enunciating carefully. His expressive eyebrows were nearing his hairline at that point. The meaning hit Keith with a sudden jolt. Taino. The guy was speaking the variant of the Taino language, a dialect called Ciboney, not spoken in that area for hundreds of years(3). Keith concentrated and managed to decipher the message.

“Am I…summer? The sun? No wait, not the sun. And something else, the rain? Summer rain? How could I be summer rain? Hang on, isn’t that an expression? For omega?”(4)  
  
The thief smiled a little as Keith tried to figure it out. Haltingly, Keith managed to replicate the sounds he’d only read before.  
  
**“Yes. Am** Keith **. Am summer rain.”**  
  
The man’s grin was brighter than his eyes. Keith couldn’t help but smile back. Pointing at himself, the man goes on in response.  
  
**“Am open mouth. Receive bounty of summer rain. Spread happiness. Make gold together.”**  
  
Keith nodded, uncomprehendingly. His texts didn’t cover idioms or conversational phrases and he was sure the literal meaning of the thief’s words wasn’t what was meant. The thief’s leer returned and he gestured lewdly down at himself.  
  
**“Bestow no pain, no anxiety. Bestow shells, gold luxury.”**  
  
Okay, Keith could make sense of that part. The alpha could obviously smell Keith’s heat and wanted to relieve the symptoms. Keith’s blush returned full force and he renewed his slackened grip on the trowel. The alpha looked worried at the movement and tried to come closer. Keith took a step back, maintaining the space.  
  
**“No fear! No fear small brush. Am Lacaracol.”**  
  
What the fuck? Small brush? What the shit kind of weird endearment was that? Keith assumed it was an endearment, meant to calm him or something reassuring. But then he stopped focusing on the phrase and paid attention to the second part. And everything started to make sense.  
  
He sighed and dropped the trowel in relief. It was all a dream. A strange fever dream, brought on by his heat no doubt. All of the digging had finally gotten to him. Keith silently hoped that he hadn’t done something stupid like curling up and trying to nest in the pit he had been digging, or somewhere else equally inconvenient outside of his tent. But maybe the pit was part of his brain’s elaborate erotic hallucination. Probably, he’d gone back to his tent in a daze and fallen asleep in his prepared nest, influenced by the archaeological site. He decided not to think about what it said about him as a person that his sexual fantasy was an ancient fertility god visiting him and fucking him in the dirt at a dig site. Relaxing immensely, Keith came to the conclusion that he should play along. After all, why not?  
  
He stepped around the discarded trowel and leaned close into the god’s space, letting a hand wander up to rest on his shoulder. Utterly baffled by Keith’s abrupt change of heart, the god blinked at Keith for a few moments before smiling disarmingly. Keith could feel some wetness between his legs and he leaned forward, eager to proceed to the good part of the dream. But a tutting noise stopped him. He opened his eyes and watched as the god plucked Keith’s hand from his own shoulder and was…examining Keith’s fingernails? Tutting unhappily the whole time.  
  
“Uh… **Lacaracol?”**

The aforementioned god’s eyes bugged out of his head and then he started shaking his head no rapidly. Fine! Maybe Keith’s pronunciation wasn’t amazing! So sue him! If this guy didn’t like the way Keith said his name _and_ had the nerve to call Keith a small brush before, then he could deal with Keith giving him a nickname that he could say with confidence.  
  
“Lance?”  
  
The god cocked his head to the side, considering. Keith gestured at the god and repeated the name, hoping his meaning would be understood. Lacaracol wasn’t sure why the offering wanted to call him something else, but the offering’s grasp on language seemed limited at best. Likely some kind of foreigner, given the skin tone and general facial features. They were very different than anything he’d seen before. Lacaracol had no problem with foreigners, especially not if they were as adorable as the one in front of him, but that cuteness was outweighed by the sheer amount of _dirt_. The omega was filthy. He could call Lacaracol whatever he liked if he would be willing to consent to a washing.  
  
When the newly named Lance nodded, Keith took that as his go ahead. But he noticed that Lance was still looking at his nail beds with a growing expression of distaste. Keith glanced confusedly down at his hand. Was something wrong with it? Would Lance reject him for having dirty fingernails? Keith bit his lip. Lance flipped his hand over and smoothed his fingers over Keith’s trowel callouses. Surely Keith wasn’t so much of a masochist that he would bother to imagine the whole scenario, only to be turned down by the glowing god of his dreams. As soon as he’d had the thought, Keith’s heart sank. He was a little fucked up. He might do that. Please, don’t let that be what happened.  
  
Lance didn’t appear to be done with him, though. In fact, he pulled Keith closer and turned abruptly, leading Keith away from the pit where he’d found the guanin. Keith followed, more obedient than he’d ever allow himself to be in real life. Despite the initial misunderstanding, being so close to Lance was affecting Keith in more ways than just sexual. All of his omega instincts were awakened in his proximity. That included his more domestic and softer desires. The desire to be taken, sure, but also to be _cherished._ It wasn’t anything Keith was used to, but, in that waking dream state, he didn’t want to think too hard. He released his tight grip on the situation and let Lance take control. They paused in front of a fountain the archaeologists had excavated weeks prior. His eyes drifted over to Lance, away from the fountain, before his brain registered something different, and he did a double take.  
  
The fountain had been dry for hundreds of years. It was brown from the soil, cracked and in overall disrepair. Keith knew. He’d seen it day in and day out every day for weeks. It was the first trench you passed when you entered the site. And yet…now it was full of clear water, clean and newly painted. Carvings on all sides of the octagonal fountain, previously long worn away by the sands of time, were in stark relief, detailed exquisitely. Keith moved closer, needing to see, to touch, to document the miraculous reversal of time for posterity. He tugged on Lance’s hand like a child, excitedly pulling him closer. But when he tried to stray too far, Lance gently grasped his wrist and halted Keith’s progress. Keith whined petulantly.  
  
“Lance! Don’t you get it? This is amazing! I can’t wait to tell the others! We thought that this was a fountain exclusively for storing fresh water to drink for villagers, but these ceremonial carvings suggest a whole new meaning! Maybe rituals were held here as well. Once the Spanish influence became more prevalent, they might have done baptisms here, since everyone knows locals wouldn’t have known the optimal design for a Catholic baptismal font-“  
  
Lacaracol was amused by Keith’s enthusiastic ramblings. He had no idea what was being said, but the fiery passion in his eyes was enough. This omega was different from the others, somehow. Maybe from being a foreigner? But the deity’s curiosity was piqued. It had been so long since he’d had an offering at all, much less a _feisty_ one. Those were his favorite. He allowed the speech for a few moments, but, when it became clear that the explosion of words wouldn’t stop any time soon, the god knew he had to take matters into his own hands. It wasn’t unusual; his offerings in the past had sometimes been fussy or inexperienced and shy. He was more than capable of taking care of an omega in all ways. It was sort of his thing after all.  
  
Muttering lowly to himself about how times had changed and had not been kind to the all important quality of cleanliness in an offering, Lacaracol carefully lifted Keith off his feet and set him down in front of the sacred fountain. He gently removed the odd blankets and cloth that Keith had fastened around his body. There were so many layers! Who needed so many cloths? It was warm out; he could feel it and Keith was sweating. Foreigners and their foreign customs, Lacaracol thought privately, with disdain. Even if Keith had originally come from somewhere cold, where blankets were needed, why was he still wearing them? The people of the area, Lacaracol’s worshippers, knew far better. The men were always unclothed and the women were too before marriage. Even after marriage, they donned only a nagua(5). Hardly the many layers Keith insisted on. Perhaps Keith should take the time to get to know the environment and the people well versed in it before tromping confidently around in the mud and sweating profusely. Lacaracol frowned at the arrogance.  
  
Keith watched, lips parted in surprise, as Lance began to strip him. He’d been rudely picked up and swung around to a different spot in front of the fountain, wrenched away from peering closer at the carvings. Disgruntled already, he’d opened his mouth to lecture Lance on their importance before nearly swallowing his tongue when Lance slid his fingers under the hem of Keith’s t-shirt. His mind blanked alarmingly when Lance’s skin touched his own. Tingles spread throughout his body, radiating from the points of contact. He simply relaxed, lifting his arms to aid in the removal of his shirt. He winced a little as it tugged on his reddened skin, but he wasn’t too bothered. Lance, on the other hand, prodded the skin with his fingers once the shirt was off. Keith frowned and jerked back, but Lance pressed forward, murmuring something no doubt meant to be comforting. He smoothed his fingertips over the burns and Keith noticed that his hands were cool. The fingers trailed down Keith’s chest and then up to his face and temples. Each finger left a trail of soothing in its wake, brushing away all old, unhappy, far off things.  
  
Keith’s jaw relaxed until his lips were barely pressed together as Lance knelt in front of him, considering the buttons on his jeans. Keith was vaguely aware that this was a quintessential out of body experience; but he could feel every touch vibrating through his flesh. He watched as Lance undid the button, lowered the zipper, and began to gently pull the denim down his legs. Keith realized that there was an additional complication.  
  
“Shoes.”  
  
He croaked. Lance looked up at him confusedly. Keith tried to kick off his shoe, but with laced-up hiking boots, he ended up tripping himself. He would have face planted, retaining only his shoes and no dignity, had Lance not anticipated the clumsiness and caught him, propping Keith against the fountain. Keith may have been dissociating, but the hot flush of embarrassment was keen. He bent over to unlace his boots and throw them off quickly, along with his socks, before finally allowing Lance to peel off his jeans and boxers in one swift movement. Finally, Keith stood for Lance’s inspection, bare and shivering, despite the heat. He felt his knees buckle with the sudden urge to kneel before the great entity and he resisted with difficulty, leaning more heavily against the comfortingly solid stone behind him. His own placidness and desire to please scared him.  
  
Before his distress could become too prominent however, Lance coaxed him into the water. Keith awkwardly clambered into the water with a splash, half turning to keep his gaze on Lance. He gasped at the icy temperature and, as if in reaction to his displeasure, the water warmed a bit. Or he got used to it. He wasn’t sure. Filled with the uncontrollable urge to float on his back like a child, Keith obeyed. His body was unnaturally buoyed in the shining liquid. The only other time he had floated so well was in Israel’s Dead Sea, though he was sure the fountain water was not salt water. Another benefit to dreaming, he supposed.  
  
Lance’s hands were gently, but attentive, as they rinsed away the dirt and stress. The god did not join him in the fountain, to Keith’s dismay. The water, too, swirled and moved, washing the places where Lance’s hands weren’t. Keith groaned in appreciation, nonetheless, the heat tightening its vice on his body once more. He had partly hoped that the god might take him there and give him some respite from the building lust and tension.  
  
Lacaracol gazed down in admiration. Minus the burns and grime, the offering was beautiful in his own way. His inky hair twisted around his serene face and tiny water droplets glinted on his long eyelashes. He was wreathed in the tiny lapping waves of the fountain, where the only sounds were of his breath and the water slapping against the stone. There was an ethereal look to him in the fountain that the god distinctly appreciated. It had been so _long._ He could sense that the mortal, Keith, not only was noble of heart, but also was devout himself. Lacaracol’s worshippers had grown scarce over time, and none were devoted only to him anymore. But this one, he could be. With the right incentive. Keeping that in mind, Lacaracol resolved to make this experience the best Keith had ever had. He would hold nothing back and would make this boy _his._  
  
He brushed his fingertips over every dip and crevasse, massaging and cleaning in equal parts. Keith seemed to have accepted the loss of control and was calmly floating, allowing Lacaracol to do as he pleased. He sensed his time was growing short before the heat would intensify to unbearable levels though. He ought to finish up the bathing and move Keith to a more suitable spot for their sacred rite, but he was also the god of mischief and he couldn’t let an opportunity like this pass by. He combed his fingers through the halo of hair, frowning when he hit a snag. The subsequent tug on his hair made Keith cry out in pleasure and his cock harden. Lacaracol noted the action with a small smirk. Feeling playful, he teased the fingers of his other hand down over Keith’s side and back up to his nipple, flicking it once. Keith blushed and squirmed in the water.  
  
**“Hmmm…sensitive.”**  
  
He particularly enjoyed the way that Keith’s blush spread down his neck and scrawled across his chest in blotchy, red patches. Letting his hand trail farther downwards, Lacaracol marveled at the smooth, pale skin, almost translucent in the moonlight. By then, Keith was half hard and torn between clenching his fists and trying to relax; letting the god do as he wished. His hips rolled unconsciously as they sought friction. Lacaracol smiled and decided to indulge Keith, ever so slightly. He drifted a hand down between Keith’s legs, smile widening as Keith parted his legs automatically for him. He rubbed gentle circles around the swollen entrance, reddened from the onset of heat. Keith moaned and tried to arch into the pressure, overbalancing and accidentally dunking himself momentarily. He thought he remembered a movie where forcefully dunking someone in water when they weren’t expecting it was enough to wake them up from a dream, but it seemed like that wasn’t the case here.  
  
He came up, spluttering like an angry cat. Lacaracol couldn’t contain his laughter.  
  
Keith had had enough.  
  
“Okay we’re done. This? This is done. Enough!”  
  
He grabbed the edge of the fountain and lifted himself over it, his feet coming down on the stone around the outside with a splat. He dripped water everywhere and felt a wash of humiliation that almost overwhelmed his heat. This was _his_ dream dammit! He was tired of tripping all over himself in front of a hot god. He stuck a finger against the god’s chest accusingly.  
  
“Either you fuck me now or I’m putting on my clothes and leaving or waking up, or whatever I need to do!”  
  
Lacaracol had been expecting the burst of temper. Heats were a delicate thing and getting an omega worked up without relief during one could be rather painful. Although not sure what Keith was shouting about exactly, the god understood the gist of it. He grinned easily at him and, while Keith was distracted by his winning smile, he scooped Keith up and walked him over to the altar for the sacred rite. Keith voiced his anger by hissing some (likely ungrateful) things at him in his weird foreigner’s language and wiggled, trying to get Lacaracol to drop him or something equally stupid. The mortal was adorably exasperating. Did he really think he could break a god’s grip on him? Clicking his tongue as the approached the altar, Lacaracol began to reconsider his decision to make this offering his devotee.  
  
He sat Keith down on the edge of the altar and bent down for a moment. Keith blinked a few times and winced at the cold, unforgiving stone beneath his bare ass. Looking around him, he wasn’t surprised to see that the altar the previous team had finished uncovering months before looked different than normal too. All the team had been able to find was the altar itself, worse for wear, pitted in many places and pock-marked with the centuries, and the foundations of two walls to the left and right side of the altar. The walls had been clearly taken down, the stone likely reused for other purposes among the Taino, or possibly the Spanish. But now, Keith was in an enclosed space. A pentagonally shaped room, lovingly decorated in gold filigree and vibrant paints. Keith eagerly craned his neck around to take in as much as he could. Columns dotted the interior, rising at one end of the altar and at the altar’s four corners. Based on how Lance had perched him, Keith assumed that the columnar end of the altar was the ‘head’ and he was sitting at the ‘foot’.  
  
Some chairs were scattered around the altar and Keith made careful note of their height. In Taino culture, the importance of a person could be easily discerned by how high their seat was, compared to others seated around them. The altar was the highest point, and in the center of the room, but some of the chairs were definitely higher than the majority of them. Clearly the nobility sat in those higher chairs. The very presence of chairs made him suspicious though. In such a temple, it wouldn’t have been uncommon for visitors to pass through, with their offerings of chicha(6), and a few chairs to accommodate the bohiques would be expected. But the arrangement of chairs suggested than an audience was often present for ceremonies involving the altar. He eyed Lance where he knelt, rummaging underneath the altar for something. He might have ogled Lance’s ass too. It was divine.  
  
Lacaracol finally found the bowl he had been looking for and stood abruptly, rocking back onto his heels with an inhuman grace. Keith had been leaning over to look down at him so without his godly reflexes, they would have crashed heads unpleasantly. As it was, Lacaracol took the opportunity to kiss the pretty mortal chastely. When he pulled away, Keith’s eyes had gone half-lidded and he couldn’t resist leaning in for another, slower kiss. He swept his tongue across the seam of Keith’s lips and they parted for him as easily as Keith’s legs did, allowing Lacaracol to step between. He cradled Keith’s head with his free hand and angled his face properly to give him languid, drugging kisses. Keith made a small noise into his mouth and his skin rasped against the stone as he tried to scoot forward. Lacaracol’s nostrils flared as he scented the air and detected the fresh wave of slick leaking from Keith’s body and knew he had no more time to tease. He quickly laid out the palm fronds around the surface of the altar, just as the ritual prescribed. The ritual that he had created so long ago, wanting to soften the experience for his devotee and simulate a nest as much as he could. Once the fronds were arranged to his satisfaction, he dipped his fingers into the bowl, withdrawing ancient shells strung on starlight and dust motes. He laid them reverently around Keith’s pale neck, humming his _Song_.  
  
When Keith saw Lance bring out the shells and heard the _Song_ , his eyes went half lidded and his mind began to drift. He recognized the laying out of palm fronds as normal decoration for Taino altars for fertility, but the shells were unexpected. When they touched his skin, he felt his lungs expand and when he breathed out, he exhaled the primal satisfaction of his omegan ancestors. Whether in the presence of a god or an intricate hallucination, it was a caring alpha who adorned him in beautiful jewelry. An alpha who pressed his shoulders back and kissed him sweetly while they both lay down. Keith didn’t resist. When Lance let him breathe again, he saw his breath was glowing, steeped in history. It didn’t even register as strange.  
  
The altar was firm against his back, but the fronds were impossibly soft against his skin, trapping his body heat and preventing the chill of stone from reaching him. Keith hummed and rubbed his shoulders blades happily. Lance tasted his lips again and Keith reciprocated enthusiastically, parched for the taste after only a moment of loss. When Lance moved to press soft nips at his throat, Keith quietly keened, not wanting to disrupt the _Song_ , and spread his legs wider. Lance was still humming, under his breath, as he alternated between bites and soothing with his tongue. He suckled at a nipple, drawing a louder, breathy cry from Keith, before kneeling upon the altar himself. Lacaracol was no stranger to making love. In the state of ecstasy the ritual and Keith’s heat had worked Keith into, touching his prick would make him cum immediately. It wouldn’t satisfy him though. It would only provide a momentary respite before it caused painful cramping and leave Keith wanting more. Instead, Lacaracol slid a hand under one milky white thigh and held it up in the crook of his elbow. His eyes slid down to the twitching hole, leaking clear fluid desperately. Keith couldn’t understand how Lance made shuffling forward graceful, but the deity managed. He distracted Keith with more slow kisses and nudged the head of his cock against Keith’s slippery hole and Keith gasped in delirious delight.  
  
He wiggled, trying desperately to get Lance to hurry up. He needed him inside of him now, dammit! But Lance only rocked forward slightly, gently sliding only the tip inside. Even that felt like too much suddenly. It was so _big_. Keith keened, his heat overwhelming his common sense and planted his other foot on the stone, arching his back to take more. Lance had obviously anticipated the move though, and arched with him, refusing to indulge. Lacaracol tightened his grip on Keith’s thigh, arching a single, disapproving eyebrow as he stopped moving entirely.  
  
**“Need trust. No fight, small brush.”**  
  
Keith blinked slowly. Part of him wondered how Lance had managed to speak while simultaneously humming still. Keith felt like his mind was full of molasses, wading ponderously through to translate the speech, comprehend the request, formulate a response, and translate it back.  
  
**“Trust. Have trust. Am implore. Need more. Am implore, very implore, have trust. Need more.”**  
  
Keith felt his whole face heat up at the whimpered admission. He was babbling, pleading. The calm of the _Song_ and the whole night was fading and he felt his embarrassment rushing in to fill the absence. Lance remained frozen, frowning down at Keith. He felt vulnerable and he didn’t like it. Lance’s perception of him was the most important thing. Keith had fucked up. Again. Like he did with every good thing in his life. Even in his dreams, he couldn’t see something through to the end. He wasn't patient enough; had tried to take control of a situation where he was supposed to relinquish it. Now the alpha had stopped. His instincts cried out at the perceived betrayal. The alpha had promised, had taken care of him, built him a nest, and only teased. Never delivered. Why? Why would the alpha not satisfy him? He was being too needy. Had somehow failed in his role as the omega. In the ritual. He’d done something wrong and the ritual was interrupted. The _Song_ faltered. Hot tears of frustration pooled in the corners of his eyes as Keith began to gather his fleeing thoughts, planning routes of escape. To hide under a rock until the earth opened up and devoured him, most likely. He had disappointed a god; nothing good could come of that.

Before he could do much more than begin to wrestle his leg out of Lance’s grasp though, the god thrust forward suddenly, sheathing more than half of his not inconsiderable length in one powerful push. Keith yipped and dropped his head to the fronds, eyes rolling back. His body strained against the intrusion, unsure whether the pain was worth the impending pleasure. Lance hummed louder, Keith’s wariness fighting a losing battle against the serenity of the _Song_. The longer he listened, the more it sounded as if it was not Lance singing, but the imaginary walls of temple around them, vocalizing in eerie harmonies, falling in and out of the human hearing spectrum. If he had focused on the sounds and tried to understand, he would have been driven mad instantly. From the sheer desire the _Song_ instilled or the extraordinary implications the lyrics suggested; it’s difficult to say. The haziness of consciousness was a human’s instinct born of self-preservation.  
  
His humiliation drained from him, as his tears slipped down either side of his face. Keith only tried to hold onto his defiance, his anger, for a few moments. Resisting the _Song_ was physically painful. Why was he pushing his lover away? He would be so lonely, so miserable without him. Lance looked down at him sadly, refusing to move again without permission. He could. He was a god, he could take everything from Keith in an instant. But still, he waited. Keith’s heart clenched and the walls wailed. How could he do this to himself? Why the punishment? He deserved something good, for _once in his fucking life._ Keith gazed at Lance, pleadingly, and nodded. Lance shifted above him and kissed away the errant tears. Keith utterly melted beneath him. Had he been crying? When had that happened?  
  
Lance set a slow pace, rocking carefully to let Keith adjust as much as he could. Just as he was beginning to think he could handle the impossible length and girth currently filling him, Lance rolled his hips at a different angle and brushed against a spot inside of him that had all of Keith’s muscles clenching hard, hands scrabbling around Lance’s broad shoulders. Keith moaned and clutched and the soft skin, gushing slick between his legs where they were joined. Lance took advantage of the moment when Keith unclenched, as his abdomen fluttered, and shoved all the way inside. Keith _screamed._  
  
So much. It was so much. Keith was split open completely. Every last bit of his soul on display for the perusal of a divine being. For a single second, the heavy sword of Damocles hung suspended above Keith’s head as he waited. Lance ground his hips forward and Keith was judged worthy. Their sighs intermingled with the _Song,_ rising in a crescendo slowly approaching its peak. Their bodies became one, separated, and sensually came together once more. He felt cum spilling from his untouched cock, even as he remained erect. The sensations were so intense that even a mini orgasm barely registered, all of his nerves far too stimulated to comprehend anything else.  Keith gladly released his grip on time and space, succumbing to the spine tingling pleasure. Every thrust increased the pace to punishing, the tides rushing in and sweeping Keith out to sea. Lance’s gyrations sent electricity sparking into him, the warmth pooling in his belly swirling to molten lava. He never had a chance to get comfortable before Lance changed the angle, burying himself deeper and deeper inside of Keith. He howled in pleasure, legs spread uncomfortably wide, the strain audible in his hoarse cries, and the walls rejoiced.  
  
All at once, Keith felt his climax burst forth, as the water condensed and finally emptied in a great deluge. His voice, already raw from his strangled groans, broke and heightened in pitch. The walls harmonized. His bones dissolved into whispered legends and he kept his eyes open, locked on the loving gaze of the abyss in the depths of the pearls that were Lacaracol’s eyes. Keith was weightless, falling into the cobalt waves. He admired the stars in the night sky, both the familiar ones and the constellations he knew couldn’t exist. Shapes of other offerings to gods hung, forever immortalized in far off places. He would join them one day. The abyss stared back.  
  
When Keith came back to himself a bit, he shivered at the feeling of Lance’s hands moving over him gently. His forehead twitched and he tried to identify the movements without opening his eyes. Something burnt in his long-slept memory said he shouldn’t look yet. Fingers traced intricate sigils on his body, each symbol burning as it was drawn and freezing upon completion. The fingertips were slightly wet and Keith realized with a fresh flush of arousal that Lance was painting him in a mixture of their cum. When the hands reach his mouth, Keith flicked his tongue out pertly to taste.  
  
He choked on the flavor and his eyes flew open. For a second, fear pulsed thickly through his blood, the sheer pain of swallowing fire overwhelming him. Everything tasted of ash and loneliness and _need_. His teeth were scorched and he couldn’t feel his tongue at all. His own body was alight with unreadable glyphs. When his gaze ventured too close, tried to discern meaning, they either slid over the word like an oil spill or reflex jerked them away when the comprehension began to dawn on him. They were not meant to be read. Not by him. They were promises of threat and threatening promises, singed over every inch of his flesh. All of them screamed of possession, of belonging to another. His eyes frantically darted to Lance only-  
  
It wasn’t Lance.  
  
The oxygen froze in his lungs and Keith was totally paralyzed. It was moving, crawling, shining with the glimmer of a summer tempest, roiling clouds and the peals of thunder, and pulsating aurelian and cerulean, crushing pressure of the deepest ocean over him, surrounding him, inside of him-  
  
Before the panic could engulf him, Lance was leaning in and kissing him sweetly, numbing the pain and reassuring him that his tongue hadn’t melted in his mouth. He was here, safe, protected, and whole. Blessed. Keith would never be alone again. Never have to suffer the clawing humiliation of failed social interaction or crave another’s touch. Never quietly tremble in the fear that he was utterly alone and when he died no one would remember him. As if he never existed in the first place. All of those walls he built around his heart came crumbling down and Keith sobbed openly in relief. Lance held him tenderly, sweeping a warm palm in soothing motions on his side. Keith couldn’t name the feeling, but he knew. He was _loved._  
  
**“Mine, small brush. No fear, no pain now. Am here always. Take care of small brush. No fear, no pain forever. Mine always.”**  
  
Keith hiccoughed and looked Lance in the face. No, looked the god, Lacaracol, in his shining, beautiful human form. He’d seen the deity’s true face and, as dazzling and powerful as the experience had been, Keith prayed that he would not see it again. Perhaps Lance could hear his prayer because he smiled a little. He carded a hand through the hair matted at Keith’s temples from sweat and tears. The palm fronds reached up from where they lay on the altar to comfortingly brush his back in reassurance. The walls sang softly about fulfillment and the gratitude of the soil to the clouds after a thirst-quenching rain.  
  
**“Am…you?”**  
  
Keith shakily questioned. Lance smiled wider and shook his head slightly.  
  
**“Are mine.”**  
  
Keith frowned. He nodded and tried again, tongue tripping over the syllables.  
  
**“Are you?”**  
  
Lacaracol’s mouth quirked to the side. Either Keith thought that he was now a god himself or was unable to master simple grammar conventions. The mortal would clearly need to be given extensive lessons in language.  
  
**“Am yours.”**  
  
**“Am…yours.”**  
  
Keith parroted. It would need some work, but it was understandable at least. Lacaracol grinned in approval. It was endearing.  
  
**“Sleep now, my small brush.”**  
  
Keith obeyed instantly. He exhaled and let his consciousness go, reveling in the bliss of being cradled in someone’s arms.  
  
When he awoke, the first thing he noticed was how _cold_ he was. Keith fleetingly wondered why he wasn’t wrapped in strong, tanned arms, before shaking himself forcefully from his reverie. With a sharp jerk of his head, he sat up and looked around. He was fully clothed, in his sleeping bag. The tent around him was definitely his and none of his belongings had been disturbed. Lifting a disbelieving hand, he yanked up his shirt to look at his body. Clean, unblemished skin greeted him. Well, okay, not entirely clean, per se, but no bizarre sigils of claiming were glowing anywhere. He stripped entirely and twisted around to check. Just in case.  
  
Satisfied finally that it was a dream, a more detailed dream than he’d ever had in his life, it felt so _real what the fuck?_ , Keith put his clothes on again. Maybe one of the other archaeologists had pranked him and spiked his food with some kind of hallucinogenic. He thought about the fountain and the altar he’d have to see as he made his way to the pit they were currently working on and blushed with his entire body. He fervently hoped that he didn’t just go into a heat daze and jerk off on an ancient relic. He shuddered in aroused revulsion. But then he remembered the carvings and the walls, so clear in his dream. Keith rushed to his journal, flipping to an empty page and hastily scrawling what he could piece together. Some of it was still clear, but when he tried to concentrate on specifics, they eluded him, seeping out of his mind like trying to cup water in his hands. Determinedly forging on, Keith filled quite a few pages with messy scrawls and renditions before throwing it aside. (Much later, when he would look through his journal again, some of the symbols he’d drawn would instill a deep unease and he’d unthinkingly flip past those pages to the more comfortingly _human_ figures.)  
  
He checked his phone which past him had thoughtfully remembered to plug in to the large portable battery. It was the next day. He stared, eyebrows drawing together. How could only a day have passed? Sure, it made sense since he didn’t remember anything else, didn’t even remember getting back to his tent, but his heat had definitely started. But when he checked now, it had passed. There was no such thing as a one day heat. Not for Keith anyway. Uneasily, he reassured himself that he must have been mistaken. Maybe he didn’t keep track of his cycle properly, (he’d been meticulous about it for _years_ ), or maybe he was just irregular (he’d never been irregular before, why would he be now?). Whatever the reason, it was good. His heat was over, he’d had a mostly great dream, and he still had some time to resume the dig before he had to fly home. That’s what he told himself for the remaining days.  
  
Keith found himself eventually on an airplane, trying to force his bag in the overhead compartment before a flight attendant noticed. He’d bought the cheapest flight option which, of course, disallowed a carry on and a personal item, as well as the ability to stow the one item overhead. But he hated how cramped the seats were already and trying to fit his satchel under the seat in front of him for such a long flight was _not going to happen_. Finally managing after a good shove, he slipped into his window seat. He crossed his fingers that no one would have bought the aisle seat next to him, but nowadays empty seats on airplanes was practically unheard of. Especially for international flights. Idly, Keith thought more about his not-heat dream. He wondered if he should update his personal altar, maybe worship Lacaracol by name. Clearly having that god on the brain had triggered the dream, so it being the last thing he saw before he fell asleep at night may not be a bad idea…  
  
People continued to shuffle down the aisles and somewhere, a baby started shrieking. Resigning himself to plastering himself to the window and grumbling about people, he sighed and folded up his jacket, leaning down to jam it under his feet. As he did so, his fingers fumbled against something heavy in his jacket pocket. Glancing around, Keith spotted his phone, earbuds, and tablet, tucked neatly in the seat pocket immediately in front of his face. There shouldn’t have been anything in his jacket pocket. His wallet was safely in his pouch around his waist. He didn’t carry his keys on him; they were in his satchel. What the hell was in his jacket?  
  
He felt someone take the seat next to him and begin to settle in, but the surge of irritation was overwhelmed by the surprise of what he revealed in his jacket. His heart pounded and he felt sweat bead on his forehead. The pendant that he’d found in his dream was _right there_. On the floor. In his jacket pocket. Slowly turning his head to the side, Keith made eye contact with the bronze-skinned man who had just sat next to him. The man looked around at the seat belt, opened and closed the buckle with some consternation, and then dropped the perplexing contraption. He noticed Keith watching him and gave a small, jovial wave.  
  
**“Happy meeting, my small brush!”**  
  
  
  


 

 

 

 

 

  
  
(1) Zemi: worshipped like a god or goddess, but is more accurately described as a deity-spirit  
(2) Cassava: tuberous root of a tropical tree, used to make bread in tropical cultures  
(3) Actually, there is currently a revival of Taino going on so it is spoken once more. But, Keith’s so wrapped up in the past he doesn’t always pay the most attention to the present.  
(4) I don’t know any Taino or Ciboney. This is not supposed to be a direct translation or a comment on the structure of the language by any means (like not including articles or pronouns). The bolded phrases are what Keith can understand.  
(5) Nagua: a small cotton apron worn by Taino women after marriage  
(6) Chicha: an alcoholic beverage made from corn  
  



End file.
